


Victims of Circumstance - 20/20-1 – Bridges Built, Bridges Burned

by motsureru



Series: Victims of Circumstance [20]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-07
Updated: 2008-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:17:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2. This is a <b><span>sequel</span> </b>to <i>Any Other Night</i>, which is a <b><span>sequel</span></b> to <i>Broken Glass. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Victims of Circumstance - 20/20-1 – Bridges Built, Bridges Burned

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous amount of thanks to [](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/)**etoile_dunord** , who put up with this incredibly long nonsense like the best beta ever. :D

**Teaser:** _Why. The ever-present question of why.  
_  
  


 

 

.20Bridges Built, Bridges Burned

 

The sense of urgency that came over Peter as he broke into the Company was odd to him. Although he had no recollection of escaping _from_ this facility, of running from the man who currently stalked by his side, there was still a strange sense of deja vu that he got from infiltrating the building. At first, Peter and the Haitian had considered moving swiftly between rooms, dodging guards and Company members alike, but finally a better plan had come to the dark man’s mind, and he placed Peter in a set of handcuffs, walking the halls with ease, pushing Peter ahead of him with a firm hand.

What better way to go unbothered than to go with a former prisoner held captive? Making their way covertly through the halls had been no more of an issue than using the Haitian’s access codes to enter in the first place. When they came upon the research wing, the Haitian moved to stand at Peter’s side as he guided him, and it was then that Peter spoke in a low voice.

“This battle, you know, for saving the world… I’m getting this strange feeling that I shouldn’t be here,” Peter began. “Maybe it’s just because I don’t remember anything… but I feel like I don’t belong here in this building, I mean, this is so unreal.” Peter wasn’t necessarily expecting an answer from the normally silent man, but he was rewarded with one as the Haitian stopped next to a door and put in the code to unlock it.

“Believe me, Peter, this is where you are meant to be,” the Haitian reassured him calmly. As he pushed open the door to let Peter in, Peter slipped the cuffs through his skin as he had once done to ropes in Ireland, handing the metal items to the Haitian.

“Yeah?” Peter asked, glancing around the room that they had entered. “I still wonder, you know, if I’m doing the right thing here. I have no way of really knowing, no memory of what I was before this…”

The Haitian placed his cuffs away on his belt loop and turned a meaningful gaze to Peter. Now was not the right time, he knew, to encourage Peter to heal his memories. Until Peter knew such a thing was possible, it was unlikely that he could heal his mind on his own, given how long he’d gone in Ireland seemingly without attempting or succeeding. Even so, the Haitian never intended to take Peter’s memories forever; he had merely to find the right time to right what he had done. “When this is over, Peter, I promise that you will remember everything.”

“Everything…” Peter echoed, staring at the man.

The Haitian nodded, and then pointed Peter to a set of glass refrigerators full to capacity with test tubes. “What I need you to do, Peter, is very dangerous. They have heat sensors for the non-cell, non-testing areas, so we will set off an alarm when you do this, but it is very important that you do it right.”

Peter nodded his head uneasily, swallowing as he gazed between the man and the containers. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to use your hands, and only your hands… and I want you to burn,” the Haitian stated. “I want you to burn the contents of this refrigerated container, these vials, with the brightest, most powerful heat you possess in your body.”

“Isn’t that really dangerous if it goes wrong?” Peter asked warily, trying to mentally brace himself for the sort of impact that could have if he made a mistake.

The Haitian nodded. “It is. That is why I will be here to guide you and stop you should something go wrong.”

 

 

“So you killed him.” Elle stated the obvious, starting to pull at the cords and sensors that attached various medical machinery to her body. Mohinder moved forward and offered with a little motion to take the tape from her hand and remove her IV line.

“I did,” Mohinder stated with a sigh, giving a tiny glance down at Sebastian’s body still curled up on the floor at their side. “I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

“Daddy’s going to be really pissed at you,” Elle added, ignoring whatever Mohinder had to say to justify his actions. “He always gets angry when I kill someone I’m not supposed to.” She winced slightly as Mohinder pulled the IV base out of the back of her hand, flexing her fingers a little. “So why don’t you kill me, too? I know your dirty little secret.” Elle watched Mohinder with her unusually bright eyes, words casual in spite of their menace. But for some reason, Mohinder couldn’t think of her too easily as a threat. Strange, maybe, but not out to kill him.

“I can’t trust you,” Mohinder replied, affirming her words. He shook his head and stepped back a bit, in case she wanted to slide out of bed. “But I don’t like killing, and I don’t condone it. I’d like to think you would make the moral decision yourself to keep your father from making more innocent people suffer.”

There was an earnest quality to Mohinder’s voice as he gazed at Elle, a tone that made her cringe a little on the inside at his righteousness. In a way it disgusted her, but also made her feel a little guilty. The doctor had saved her life, even though he didn’t have to. He had spared her, even though he would kill to keep his work from her father. He could have refused to help her at all, like he had seemed to want to, but he didn’t.

“Maybe I’m not such a good person,” Elle offered, her stare testing Mohinder. She began to finger-comb through her hair, straightening it out from its mussed mess. “You don’t know me at all, Doc. Maybe I helped Daddy inject those people?”

Mohinder seemed to flinch at the thought, and he looked down. There was a pang of disappointment, a heavy feeling in his chest, which Mohinder hated. “That may very well be, Elle,” he admitted softly. After a moment, Mohinder lifted his gaze again. This time, his dark eyes seemed stronger, more resolute in their hope. “But you know, what your father did to you was terrible. It was awful. And I hope, deep down, that you can be a better person than him now that you’ve felt what the kind of terror he puts others through is like.”

Elle swallowed, expression becoming a little strained, as if the knowledge of her father’s wrongdoing was too much to bear. “I know all about you, Doc. I read Daddy’s files on you. You’re weak. You want to believe the best in everyone. Even a man like _Sylar_?” she stated the sentence with a questioning intonation, waiting for a reaction.

Mohinder’s blood raced a bit faster at the name, his heart pounding a little sharper from it. “Do you really think that makes me weak?”

“I don’t understand it,” Elle confessed, words unknowingly echoing Bennet’s words to the Haitian some months earlier. “A guy like Sylar? You can’t get more screwed up than that. Not even me. So why’s he worth saving? He did a lot of awful things, too. To other people, to you.”

Why. The ever-present question of why.

It might have troubled Mohinder, once. It might have sent ripples of trepidation through his body and shivers down his spine. It might have made an insuppressible guilt well in his chest, months ago.

But not today.

Mohinder met Elle’s pale blue eyes with his own, and he smiled. He only smiled. A smile was all he had. “Because, Elle, some people wait to cross their bridges before they burn them.”

Elle opened her mouth to speak, but, suddenly, a biting, loud wail of a noise ripped through the air. There was a red-colored alarm in the far corner, and above it a silver bulb began to pulse, sending unnatural light through the room in rhythmic motions.

“The fire alarm?” Elle asked in a loud voice, squinting against the hideous noise.

Mohinder nodded, holding a hand to one ear. “Go get dressed!” he motioned to the bureau in the corner that held her regular clothes. He let his eyes fall to the corpse still resting near his feet. “I’ll take care of this!” Elle nodded and slid out of the hospital bed.

Mohinder leaned down, pausing to pocket the orange solution that had hit the floor with Sebastian’s body. He grabbed Sebastian’s stiff ankles, starting to tug his slender figure towards the side laboratory. When Mohinder returned a moment later, Elle was in a pair of jeans and a dark blue top, looking for the world as if she had never once been touched by illness. “Let’s go,” he suggested. She nodded to Mohinder in the direction of the door, reaching to open it herself, but it swung open before she had the chance.

“Elle?”

“Daddy?” Elle blinked as Bob entered the room, an apprehensive look on his features.

The man paused to look at his daughter, a full look up and down, and then turned his eyes to Mohinder. A relieved touch of a smile danced across his lips, but it quickly fell away. “It’s good to see the two of you are okay. I’m going to need you to stay right here, and don’t go anywhere.”

Elle frowned in confusion, moving forward. “What’s going on, Daddy? Let me come help you.”

“No, Elle,” Bob shook his head sternly. “There’s a heat signature in the building and it’s not a fire, so you need to stay put right here.”

“I’m cured, I can help!” she insisted, all the disappointment of a child playing across her features, as though she had a truly difficult time understanding his refusal. “I have my powers back, see?” Elle gave a little zap in the air just to prove her point.

Bob shook his head again, brow furrowing. “Here. I mean it, Elle. You’re going to keep Doctor Suresh secure here, and then I’ll come back and let you know when you can leave.”

“But-”

“No buts!” he turned and slammed the door on them, breaking into a jog back down the hallway and disappearing rapidly from view.

Elle gave a frustrated groan and raised her fists, clenching them in the air as if to strangle someone. She kicked the wall, giving a huff, and looked back at Mohinder.

The doctor gave a small shrug in her direction, smiling faintly. He couldn’t help but feel a subtle excitement beginning to rise inside him. This could be more than a freak incident. This could be more than a coincidence. Sylar might be coming.

The young woman crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall, staring at the floor. She remained that way for a short while, contemplating, and then lifted her eyes to Mohinder. Suddenly her gaze seemed to light up. “Say, Doc…” she began, unfolding her arms and giving a wide, eager smile. “Would you like a little jolt?”

 

 

The halls to the prison area were relatively empty as Sylar moved through them, a wolf among what were sure to be other wolves. He had moved down a floor as Bennet had told him, towards the containment cells, and any guards that happened to cross his path along the way were unfortunate men indeed.

The lights were dimmer down here, as if they told of the darkness others might encounter beyond steel walls. Sylar moved smoothly, air still and untelling of the alarm that was soon to sound. His eyes scanned cell numbers, traveled along locks and thick black letters, seeking. What he sought ended up being a solitary cell, one set slightly apart from the rest. The door mocked him from its placement at the end of the hall, directly in his view. It stood, waiting, it seemed, for his overdue approach.

The name plate was as bold, but no different from the rest:

 

**S. BARRET**

Sylar pressed a hand against the chilly metal door, eyes focusing in on the lock. There was a difference here from the other doors: it had only manual locks, no electronic ones. How it worked was simple and uncomplicated. He turned the lock and bolt mechanisms with his mind, and the door released its resistance with a loud snap that echoed down the hall.

But the snap did not echo inside.

This was the first thing Sylar noticed. The door swung open outwards, and immediately Sylar was met with black silence. Within the confines of this cell, Sylar heard neither the drip of pipes nor the flow of ventilation ducts, not the creak of a bed mattress or the groan of a captive pained by his imprisonment. Sylar heard none but a single noise, lost amid the void of soundlessness. When Sylar strained his ears against the absence of sound, the distinctive thud that came to him was a heartbeat, rapid and powerful. His eyes narrowed against the murk. Sylar took two slow steps forward, and, reaching to his right, felt a light switch on the wall. He flipped it up.

Sylar had been expecting bright fluorescent light to flood the room, for blinding, sterile white to sting harshly at his retinas as it had in his own holding cell at the Primatech building in Texas. But what he found instead was a low, flickering bulb of a less than radiant incandescence. The light was cased in a circular shade, one that cast dusky, yellow beams of light down in such a way that deep shadows were left in their wake in spite of the weak illumination.

What rest within those shadows, beneath the lamplight, was Sylar’s objective.

It sat in a chair, cast in that darkness, a monster in the form of a man. He was seated on a chair that was wide and flat at its armrests, more like a throne than it was a normal seat. His hands, gaunt and skeleton-like in their thinness, lay over the ends of those rests, as if only a corpse sat upright to greet him. He may as well have been a corpse for so many reasons.

Skin pale and white, clinging over veins and faint muscle, he seemed little more than a husk of what the daylight had once shown Mohinder and Sylar. His cheeks were hollow, his form emaciated, hair haphazardly longer and crudely falling over his face. Sylar walked forward, his steps causing no echo on the floor, and looked down at the excuse for a man seated before him.

“Sebastian,” Sylar stated calmly, tilting his head to look closer at his shadowed face.

There was silence from the still figure at first, but then the heartbeat within it suddenly leapt a pace higher, and he took in a deep breath as though he had, until this moment, forgotten to breathe all together. Sebastian tilted his head back and up towards Sylar, eyes sunken into his skull-like face, but wide and suggestive of the mad laughter Sylar had seen in his dreams. Sebastian smiled. “Mister Sylar…” he rasped out slowly, voice hoarse as though unused for ages.

Aside from his particularly malnourished figure, Sebastian had another significant difference to his features that Sylar noticed immediately. Across his sallow skin, so weak and thin, Sebastian had a multitude of scars, scars that littered his flesh like frequent freckles or birthmarks might. The raised flesh came in all shapes and sizes, cuts, circular marks, even more gruesome areas of wrinkled, nerveless flesh on one of his arms. One scar in particular caught Sylar’s attention and drew a devious smile onto his lips: a thin, perfectly even line that flowed across Sebastian’s forehead like a halo marking the blessed. Marking those above the weak, pitiable humans.

“Oh Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian… And here I wondered how you did it… how you survived…” Sylar murmured to himself, reaching a hand forward and grasping onto the man’s gnarled hair. With his left hand, he yanked Sebastian’s head harder against the back of his chair, gazing down into his hollow green eyes. They cast a slightly gold color whenever the light flickered. “But you’ve got a mark for every death here, don’t you? The marks that appear on other bodies… Your other bodies,” Sylar said thoughtfully, eyes narrowing and smile beginning to fade. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment,” Sylar whispered, lifting his other hand and drawing it forward. Sebastian showed no sign of alarm.

“I have a feeling I do, Mister Sylar,” he spoke with a soft smile forming on his face. “You’ve killed me once already, after all.” But the smile did not last. There was another spike in his heartbeat, and the man’s entire body gave a tremor. One of his claw-like hands reached up and grasped hard at his chest, his eyes widening in a type of pain and terror that could not be faked. Sylar watched, intrigued, as Sebastian’s body shook and struggled, throat coughing and hacking and letting loose a moan of pain. Then, finally, Sebastian’s hand dropped away, and he took several deep breaths, trying to regain control of his extremities.

“Sounded painful, Doctor,” Sylar smirked, “Lose another body so soon?”

Sebastian gave a wheezing breath and small grin in return, lids lowering over his eyes part way as he gazed at the murderer above him. His words were labored. “If your sweet Mohinder… knew how difficult it was… to split the body into so many doppelgangers at once… he would hesitate to kill me so thoughtlessly…”

Sylar straightened his posture a little at that, and a strange, amused little smile came over him. Mohinder had killed a copy of Sebastian just then, had he? How _dear_ Mohinder was to Sylar’s heart. His feelings swelled with an unusually delighted air. But alas, the time for that was not now. “Your locks aren’t the same as the others, Sebastian. This is voluntary isolation, isn’t it? No sound, no lights, no disturbances… I admire that determination in you,” Sylar admitted, “To lock yourself in sensory deprivation... The mental faculties it must take to maintain multiple bodies outside yourself, oceans apart, must be so utterly taxing that even the slightest disturbance here could disrupt you. It’s fascinating to know how it works. I’m glad I found out before I killed you.”

“This is what I needed,” Sebastian stated, finally breathing normally again and struggling to sit up slightly, in spite of Sylar’s vicious hold on his hair. “The Company gave me everything I needed to utilize my ability to the fullest—they could do that for you, too. There’s a place for you here,” he insisted, voice a harsh, whispery tone.

Sylar outright laughed at that. “You think I want to be here? Behind a cell wall by your side? Sitting here, like you? You’re _pathetic_ ,” Sylar almost growled, “Encased here, a slave to their whim, while you play the part of some dark god reigning over your idiotic little clones? King of Nothing! Don’t insult me.” When Sebastian gazed at Sylar with those wide, sunken eyes, Sylar saw Death lingering in the man’s gaunt face. And Death could not be stopped for any bargain. Sylar slowly smiled again.

“You can’t offer me anything I want, Sebastian.” Sylar lifted his right hand again, and it began to glow brightly, a harsh, stinging light. Heat emanated from it, engulfing his fingers and causing them to disappear in the harsh radiance that lit the room. Sylar’s hand drew closer, and his eyes focused hard, watching Sebastian’s face begin to contort in fear like a hideous, skeletal mask. The man’s skin began to singe, turning red and peeling back slowly from the biting heat.

“I-If you kill me like that you might damage the brain!” Sebastian suddenly gasped, twisting his head away from the heat as best he could, but beyond the strength or power to truly flee Sylar’s touch. It would have been a useless struggle. “Y-you could boil it inside, scald away the lovely grooves you read so carefully…! My power—” Sebastian let out a screech as boils began to appear over his cheeks and forehead, the intensity of the temperature unrelenting.

Sylar glowered darkly. “I don’t even want it this time, Sebastian. I just want to see you _dead._ ” Sylar pushed his hand forward fully, grabbing the sides of Sebastian’s skull in the spread of his grip. He hastened the heat, watching as the flesh began to bubble, burst, and melt, scalded and seared beneath his hold. Sebastian’s cries echoed not at all, but hung, shrill and agonized in the air, disappearing when his throat was scorched away with the rest of his features. Sylar pressed Sebastian’s form down into the chair, letting his face and head disappear in a sticky, simmering mess of skin and sinewy muscle. Small tendrils of smoke rose in its wake, smelling of a most foul barbeque that even a starving animal might turn its nose from.

Sylar pulled away when the head could no longer be recognized as something human, and as he dimmed the fluorescence of his palm, he gazed at the body, so weak and twisted in the chair that had been, for years probably, its only comfort. Sylar gazed at the monstrosity that had once been a person, and felt, in spite of all his lessons learned, not a hint of remorse.

“He’ll only ever need one of me,” Sylar told the remnants of Sebastian Barret.

From behind him, Sylar heard a high, whining tone begin to sound, and suddenly the lights in the hall began to flash white, striking the walls of the cell from the open door. Sylar turned, glancing back down the way he had come, and smiled.

It was time, now, to see Mohinder.

 

“What are you going to do, Elle?”

With the alarm sounding angrily overhead and the flashing lights pulsing on and off in the hospital room, Mohinder and Elle could only stand there, tensely, awaiting further instruction. Elle had begun to pace back and forth, whispering angry words to remind herself of her qualifications and how wrong her father had been to leave her behind on babysitting duty. When Mohinder spoke, she stopped pacing, turning around to face him.

“What are you talking about? Do about what?”

Mohinder leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. He had been thinking on the dead body in the other room. It bothered him to know he had taken part in the death of another, but, in his own way, he was exchanging the life of one for the lives of many, and somehow he had to be alright with that. Instead of contemplating too hard on Sebastian, he decided to refocus his thoughts on Elle.

“About your father,” Mohinder continued, watching her. “You don’t really intend, after all this, to continue with his plans, do you? It’s wrong, Elle. It’s… it’s evil.” Mohinder knew too little about Elle to be able to gauge what she was and was not capable of, and even though it made him wary to think of how Bob might have trained her, he felt the obligation to at least try to reason with her.

The young woman seemed unimpressed by Mohinder’s words. “Evil is relative, Doc. Daddy and I do what it takes to get our jobs done. We’re not out there to destroy the world. We lock up the ones like that.”

Mohinder shook his head. “You play with fire. You could have died today. And it would have been your father’s fault.”

Elle seemed to tense at that, and her jaw tightened a little. “Daddy thought he had a cure, he planned on saving me. He cared about what was happening to me,” she stated, almost struggling to reassure herself of those words.

“That may be the case,” Mohinder said seriously, dark eyes on her pale ones, “But he didn’t care enough to think twice about the possibility that you could have died.”

Something softer, more uncertain came to Elle’s eyes. Even as it seemed to fight the truth the behind those words, it also touched on something deep and unrecognized in her. “Y-you’re wrong, Daddy wou-”

The sound of gunshots cut Elle off, and they both turned to the door. There were shouts then, loud, angry threats muffled by the wood of the door. There was a loud banging noise next, and thuds that sounded like people being tossed back and forth. Finally, a silence came over the hall, and just as Elle rushed to the door and grabbed the handle, it swung open abruptly.

Mohinder moved forward in alarm, but the face that met him was one familiar, one that surprised him, but did not disturb him. “Bennet!” Mohinder exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Did you-”

“You!” Elle lifted her hand, a spark forming instantly with the heat of her thoughts.

Bennet lifted his gun immediately, and the barrel was pointed squarely at Elle. “That’s a really, really bad idea, Elle,” he informed her, eyes grave behind his glasses. “I’m not here for you. I want to speak with your father. He’s not in his office, so where is he?”

Mohinder gazed between the two, brow furrowing. “You two know each other?”

“It’s history,” Elle replied, a firm look of distrust on her face. “And so are you, Bennet.” Elle’s spark ignited into something brighter, and Bennet drew the sight of his gun straighter in response.

“No, stop!” Just as Elle moved to strike, Mohinder grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. “Elle, I didn’t cure you just so Bennet could shoot you down! Think about what you’re doing!” he pleaded, trying to covertly move between her and Bennet. Elle looked as though she was about to strike Mohinder, but was stopped by Bennet’s abrupt voice.

“Wait a second!” Bennet stepped forward and pushed Mohinder aside. He turned Elle around, holding her by the shoulders, even as one hand juggled the gun, and looked seriously into her eyes. “Elle, _you_ had the virus? Your father gave it to you?” A tightness in Bennet’s chest began to lift at the thought, realizing for the first time in the blind alarm that had consumed him that Isaac’s painting had never shown Claire at all. He did not feel shame for his assumptions, but a sense of relief at what had been proven wrong.

Elle’s expression at Bennet’s question betrayed her confused emotions, faced once more with the words of a person contradicting what she thought she knew of her father’s love. Her eyes, fighting off glassiness, turned angry and hard. She pressed a palm to Bennet and shocked him hard enough to make him stumble back. “You don’t understand anything! You-”

The door swung open hard, hard enough to nearly knock it off its hinges. Bennet was the one to look up sharply even as he caught his balance, expecting an attack, but an unlikely ally stood in the doorway instead:

Sylar, decked in his usual black, with one hand stained scarlet and the other grasping the door, stood with a casual smirk on his face, his eyes alight with more than one type of success in them. He saw past Bennet, past Elle, and registered only one wide-eyed face.

“Miss me?” he asked, tilting his head a touch to the side, an expression of accomplishment dancing across his features.

Mohinder’s heart leapt in his chest, and his breath caught before he could even gasp. His chest fluttered, and the sheer joy he felt at seeing Sylar’s face again was unlike any other elated emotion he had ever felt. “Sylar!” Mohinder moved to pass Bennet and meet the man, but Bennet was faster.

Bennet lifted his gun and fired.

 

 

 

Time stopped.

 

 

 

Every person froze.

  
  


 

 

The sound of the bullet echoed in the ears of each individual, a resounding clap of impending death, the sound a vibration that made every heart skip a beat and feel the clammy dread of demise creep in the backs of their minds. The shot was deafening, startling, halting.

Sylar looked to Bennet, and Mohinder to Sylar.

Then the pause was broken by Mohinder running forward to Sylar and Sylar grabbing the man by the shoulders, pulling him aside and into the room.

“ ** _Sylar_** _!_ Are you hurt?! Sylar-” Mohinder asked breathlessly, words spewing uncontrollably from his lips. He was searching up and down the man’s body frantically with wild eyes, and his hands moved over Sylar to check for injury. But Sylar only watched for the briefest of moments, smiling softly, and hushed Mohinder with fingers to his lips.

Behind the doorway stood a man, a man falling to his knees as blood began to pour from the hole in his chest.

Bob lifted a palm to what was once his white shirt, and from his other fell his gun. His blue eyes were wide and shocked, and they stared only at Bennet’s vengeful gaze, not his daughter who so abruptly ran forward.

“Daddy! **Daddy!** ” Elle shouted, dropping to her knees and grabbing his shoulder to keep him upright. But it was useless, and Bob gave a gurgling, wheezing gasp as he fell back instead, onto his side. A lung was surely punctured, and blood was quickly seeping out into open air, dark and gruesome.

Bennet watched this scene calmly, aim still high. He had considered other options, he had tried to think of a dozen other ways this could have ended. But with Elle the next victim, rather than Claire, Bennet was even more assured that Bob would stop at nothing to achieve the Company’s ends, given the proper means. The power the Company wielded would drain every last drop of morality from the man; what was a world in which even the villain’s daughter was not safe from his evils?

“Hold on, Daddy, hold on we’ll get you some help!” Elle insisted, eyes tearful as she held the back of the man’s neck, pressing her palm over the wound. She looked down the hallway in her panic, but saw no one, only collapsed figures and the flashing lights of the alarm. “Daddy, no!” Elle begged softer, voice beginning to choke up with emotion she had never been sure before that she could feel.

But Bob shared no such emotion; he stared up, blankly, as his body struggled to pump blood, gasping as a fish might gasp for water if plucked from its tank. And then the gasps became softer, and Robert Bishop could not even have replied to his daughter had he tried.

A trembling, agonized noise tore from Elle’s lips, and the repeated murmur of ‘Daddy, Daddy, no, Daddy,’ became the chorus of her voice. She held onto the bloody wound on his chest, her other hand stroking his face in terrified awe.

Bennet, Sylar, and Mohinder watched from inside the door, Mohinder holding onto one of Sylar’s arms while the other enveloped him protectively. Bennet lowered his gun, and it was too soon, it seemed, for suddenly Elle’s tear-stricken face turned on them, and her entire form lit up with an angry, pale blue light.

“ ** _YOU_** _!_ ” she seethed, standing up and bearing her hands with palms up, the air crackling and popping thunderously from the heat of her electricity.

Elle rushed forward with a gruff cry to strike Bennet, but then all at once her bolts flickered, a buzz sounding like the dying of a bulb, and her light vanished. Elle hardly seemed to notice, for she continued to charge at Bennet. Sylar moved to stop her, but Mohinder tugged his sleeve to halt his action.

Elle struck Bennet across the face, knocking his glasses free, and began to beat her fists against him, smacking and hitting everywhere she could reach. At first her cries had been of rage and hatred, but with every blow, they became softer, more desperate, until sobs overcame her. Elle pounded against Bennet’s chest, crying painful cries, and Bennet did not raise his gun or make a single move to stop her. As Elle began to sink to the floor, chest heaving with her wails, Bennet moved down with her, slowly wrapping an arm around her weeping figure.

The Haitian stepped out from around the corner of the door, and he gazed at the pair impassively. When the others looked up to him, however, they felt there was a hint of sympathy hiding behind his usually stoic eyes. It was Bennet’s that reflected that feeling most keenly.

“Do her a favor,” Bennet murmured, stroking Elle’s trembling back. “…take it all.”

Finally tearing his eyes away from Elle’s tearful figure, Mohinder looked up to Sylar in relief, and the man was already staring back, a strangely peaceful expression on his face. Their eyes exchanged what words could not, and then finally Mohinder moved forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Sylar’s waist. The embrace no less powerful than the one they had shared after the trip to Haiti, but this one held so much more deep and complicated a reunion. When Sylar’s strong arms embraced Mohinder in return, he felt a love that couldn’t possibly be conveyed in any other way.

“You came for me,” Mohinder whispered in the man’s ear, fingers clutching softly at the fabric over his shoulders.

Sylar held Mohinder close, breathing in deeply the scent of his hair and feeling eagerly the frame of his body so close. He was warm, strong, real. “I guess I’m not quite done with you yet.” Sylar let out his breath slowly, feeling an undeniable sense of comfort just from being near Mohinder. Distracting though they were, the last few days had been a hell of anxiety for him. Now he could rest. Almost.

Sylar pulled back slightly, keeping an arm around Mohinder’s waist, and pressed his lips soundly to Mohinder’s. In this moment, in this kiss, there was no one and nothing else. Only sound, warmth, scent, and the lingering desire to feel them deeper when time provided. But that time was not now.

Finally breaking their kiss, Sylar looked over to Bennet, who had passed Elle, now whimpering quietly, to the Haitian’s arms. Peter appeared at the door as well, having stood back and behind in the face of the business of strangers. Mohinder saw him, and a look of surprise stole across his face as if Peter were a ghost. This day was full of the unexpected.

“Bennet,” Sylar began, glancing from him to the others, “What’s going to happen now? This building isn’t exactly burning down, and there are prisoners in the basement cells, still.”

Bennet stood slowly, sliding his gun into the back of his slacks as he straightened himself up. He picked his glasses up from the floor and replaced them on his face. “Well, we’ve taken care of the viral research and samples as well. Now, we start again. There’s a certain benefactor who has also been concerned about the direction this company is taking.” Bennet lifted his gaze, moving it from the Haitian, to Peter, and back to Sylar. “She’s going to come help clean up this mess, and then we’re going to have a long conversation about the future.”

The Haitian turned his eyes to Peter, who looked as if he was about to speak. “You and I need to have a moment before then. I think there are some very important things you will want to remember.” Peter only replied with a puzzled look.

            “We won’t be joining you,” Mohinder said suddenly, addressing Bennet. Bennet looked at him quizzically, frowning.

          “What do you mean? We’re talking about a new Company here, Mohinder. You can do great things with us.”

            Mohinder found he was weary of those words. He felt uncertain of himself for just a moment, but it was a moment easily passed over when Sylar’s hand rest reassuringly on his shoulder. “No,” Mohinder shook his head. “I won’t work for any company, Bennet, not even yours. I won’t be used as anyone’s instrument, and I’m done here.” Mohinder said these words resolutely. If Bennet said the research on the virus was gone, then his new ‘cure’ was now obsolete. A safety net, should the need arise, and no one who knew of it was left alive, or would be with their memory intact.

            “What about your work?” Bennet asked, frowning. “It’s important to us, even if it’s not-”

            “I’ll still do it,” Mohinder interrupted, pausing to glance back at Sylar’s approving, private little smile. Mohinder smiled faintly back, but then returned his solemn look to Bennet. “I plan on continuing, but I won’t be doing it for you. We can keep in contact, like before, but I don’t care who is in control here, so long as they stay far away from us.”

            Bennet didn’t appear pleased at that, but then again he never was pleased by Mohinder’s defiance. He was still a Company man at heart, calculating and controlling, even if his motivations were good. “Fine,” he conceded with a small sigh and a nod. “We’ll be in touch?”

            “And we’ll be leaving,” Sylar added with a tone of finality.

Mohinder glanced to Sylar, giving his own nod of confirmation, and then he stepped away from the group, towards the door. He paused at Peter’s side, giving him a slow, simply happy smile. He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you alive, again, Peter,” Mohinder stated honestly, shaking his head slightly at the irony of witnessing the man’s death twice and being rewarded with falsehood both times. He moved past Peter and out into the hall.

Sylar cast a look to Bennet, wary still, and then nodded a brief recognition to the Haitian as he walked away. He stopped next to Peter as well, but did not pat the man as a friend. Sylar did smirk. “One day, you’ll look back on this, and it’ll all be pretty ironic, Peter.”

            Peter arched an eyebrow, tilting his head a little. “Why is that?”

            Chuckling quietly to himself, Sylar glanced towards Mohinder, and Mohinder’s look was questioning. “You’ll figure it out, Peter,” Sylar smiled, following Mohinder out into the hall. “It’ll make for a good story some day.” Sylar touched a hand to Mohinder’s side, walking with him past the path of destruction and bodies Bennet and his associates had created while Sylar was busy.

            “You worked with Peter?” Mohinder asked as they went, eyes on Sylar’s strangely satisfied expression.

            Sylar’s smile threatened to become a grin, but he contained himself. “I think a lot of firsts happened over the past few days,” he stated, returning Mohinder’s stare. Something understood passed between them, and Mohinder looked down a little. He was thinking, Sylar realized, of the false death he had brought upon Sebastian Godard.

            “Sylar,” Mohinder began, stopping their steps to gaze up at the man. His features showed a vague sense of guilt, but a conflict there, too. Though he wanted to feel badly that Sebastian’s life had come to an end at his hands, Mohinder felt a certain undeniable sense of justice to what he’d done. Even so, he felt as if this was to be a necessary confession. “I… Sebastian…”

           A hand moved from Mohinder’s side up to his shoulder, and Sylar looked to him calmly. “I know, Mohinder. I was with the real him when you killed him.”

            Mohinder squinted slightly, tilting his head in confusion. “With…the real…? What do y-” He paused as the realization dawned on him. Mohinder’s eyes widened. “Sebastian had-”

            “Nothing that I wanted,” Sylar finished with a shake of his head. His eyes bore down into Mohinder’s seriously, but in place of what might have once been an oppressive, calculating weight, was only an honest stare. There was no need for explicit words; he was sure that Mohinder understood.

            Mohinder did. Touching the hand on his shoulder, Mohinder squeezed it gently, a small smile carefully crossing his lips. He recalled a time, what seemed so very long ago, that Sylar had lain in a hospital bed, casting bitter, distrusting glares Mohinder’s way. He had told Mohinder that they were the same, in spite of what the scientist wanted to think. Mohinder had not believed him then.

Yet here they were, side by side again in the end. Even if it was side by side in murder, a burden felt somehow lifted. The irony of it was not lost on Mohinder, but he was finally beyond carrying that weight until he could walk with it no more.

            Mohinder gave a soft sigh. It was time to leave it behind them, leave it here, where it had started. “You know,” Mohinder murmured, “I almost forgot how tiring the world could be.” He turned back towards the doors and began to walk again. “It seems that every time I come to America, I never want to go back again.”

            “We don’t have to, anymore,” Sylar added, pausing to push open the door for them both and allow Mohinder to step out into the warm night air. “There’s an apartment waiting for us, and a boss back in India you can call for more… private facilities. No partners, this time.”

            The very words made Mohinder feel an unexpected warmth in his chest. He had something familiar, something secure to return to. There was a life he had begun, a new world that had taken root the moment he stepped out of Mercy General Hospital with Sylar guided by his hands. Doubt, uncertainty, lies, bitterness—how quickly they had vanished and his life taken a course that was as enticing as it was unpredictable. Yet, in spite of the vast unknown that played its tune in the farthest reaches of Mohinder’s mind, a perfect known had settled in his heart, where it mattered.

            Reaching up and touching the back of Sylar’s neck affectionately, Mohinder smiled. “I think I’m ready to go home.” Glancing at his lover with a look of equal understanding, Sylar touched a finger beneath the man’s chin and leaned down to place a sound kiss on Mohinder’s lips. It was all the reply he needed.

 

 

~~~~~~

 

 

The room was dark, dank, devoid of the kind of liveliness that should have marked a popular bar. More than that, the kind of liveliness that should have marked the life of a man once capable of extraordinary things. He curled a little closer into himself, shoulders narrowly bent, hand firmly fixed on the handle to his mug. The smell of alcohol permeated not only the bar, but this man as well.

He was blind, deaf, ignorant of the world around him. It was a world that held nothing for him, not even the happiness of a family he had once held so dear. Those who might have given him comfort now could not show him that bright smile, the warm, unconditional, loving eyes that had understood him, even when the man himself did not. Why could he not save such a precious person? Why were his efforts in vain? Why was the face he saw in the mirror every day hideous and marred by disaster? Was that what his heart looked like now, he wondered?

A hand touched his shoulder, and the man shrugged it off with a clumsy swipe, as much disoriented as he was irritated. “Go away, buddy, don’t want to talk,” he grumbled angrily. But the touch came again, and it was softer, this time.

“…Nathan?”

The man sat up so fast he nearly fell off his stool. His bloodshot eyes went wide, and his very heart ceased to beat, even as his head spun around to meet the familiar voice.

“…P-Peter…?”

 

 

The sun was shining brightly, and it was a normal day for Claire Bennet; a dull, uneventful day in the sunny Costa Verde. Granted, the days had become more interesting after she was instated as a cheerleader, after she had begun to date West, and she had no trouble now passing through her courses by making herself out as a moderate student (much better, she had decided, than an idiot), but still there was a certain boredom that made her sigh wistfully as she texted her boyfriend on the phone.

            She had wanted to go out with him today to take the edge off the monotony of it all, but her father had called to say he was coming home and had something important to talk about on top of that. So Claire sat in the kitchen with her phone, twirling her finger around a bowl of icing and waiting for cooling cupcakes.

            Suddenly, the sound of the door opening made her sit up, and Claire set her phone down on the counter, sliding out of her chair. “Dad?” she called, crossing the kitchen floor.

            “I’m home, Claire-bear!” he replied, shutting the door behind himself. Her footsteps sounded lightly until Claire rounded the corner and appeared with a smile.

            But that smile quickly faded into confusion. At her dad’s side, Claire saw a stranger, a girl who looked almost her own age, but a little older. She had fair skin, blue eyes, and pale blonde hair much like Claire’s own, only more straight and styled differently. She had the strangest expression on her face as she stood next to Claire’s father, like someone lost in her own skin.

Claire’s expression of questioning moved from the girl and back to her father. “Dad? What’s going on?”

“Claire,” Bennet began, placing a hand on the stranger’s shoulder and smiling at his daughter. “I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is Elle. She’s going to be staying with us from now on. I think you’ll find you two have quite a bit in common.”

 

 

“Don’t tell me you think I should learn Italian?”

“Well, it’s not as if it would be hard, it’s a romance language! I enjoyed learning French. If you want hard, learn Tamil,” Mohinder said with a small huff.

Sylar could only chuckle at that, hand resting comfortably at the small of Mohinder’s back as they walked down the lively Saturday afternoon Cercottes street. “I could learn Tamil. Just buy me a dictionary and give me a few movies to listen to.”

“Is that how you learned French?” Mohinder laughed, obviously joking. But when he looked over at Sylar, the smirk on his face was amused, and definitely very serious about his words. “…Nevermind. My point is, if we did move somewhere else—and we could, with the grant Mira has given us— then we could have our pick of any country.”

Sylar pursed his lips lightly as though deep in thought. He ‘hmmm’ed softly to Mohinder’s words, making the other man raise an eyebrow and give him a poke in the side. “What? What are you thinking?” Mohinder asked, smiling slightly.

Sylar glanced down at Mohinder, a sly expression on his lips. “Nothing. Only that I was starting to like French a little, you know. And I rather like this area.”

The words surprised Mohinder, and he frowned at Sylar critically. “Really? I thought you might be getting bored here. Or maybe you might miss traveling, like we did in London.”

A slight grin came to Sylar’s lips, and tried to hide it by glancing across the street at nothing in particular. “Oh, there _are_ things I miss about London…” He looked back at Mohinder to reach up and grab a curl by his ear, tugging it playfully. Mohinder swatted at his hand mildly in return. “But even if we do travel, I think I’d like to come back here,” Sylar confirmed.

“Huh,” Mohinder said lightly, trying to wrap his mind around that. They walked on, and Mohinder was lost in his own thoughts until he noticed Sylar give a small pull on his arm. Sylar had stopped walking. Mohinder turned his gaze up to the man. “What? What is it?”

Sylar smiled, taking in for a moment that look of curiosity on Mohinder’s face that could be so captivating. “Nothing. Just that I want to go in this shop, here,” he said, motioning to Mohinder’s left.

Mohinder turned around, looking to his side at the glass windows that met him.

_Lefebvre montres & réparations._

Sylar lifted his hand and placed it on Mohinder’s shoulder.

“There’s someone here that I’d like you to meet.” 


End file.
